NATO Peacekeeping, Family Harmony, and Automatic Chicken Doors

I spent 10 years in NATO assignments, so I’m pretty acquainted with the challenges of trying to accommodate seemingly incompatible desires.  Hey, if I could somehow deal diplomatically with both sides of the Aegean Sea dispute between Turkey and Greece, I should be able to figure out a farm, right?

Right.

OK, we’re not talking international incidents, but our chickens did provide us with a challenge, caused (as most challenges are) by competing agendas:

1.  We want to raise our chickens in a natural, free-range environment (for all of these reasons)

2.  We want our chickens to feed us, not the local predators, and

3.  We want to be able to leave the house every once and a while and not have to chase the chickens inside before we leave, or wonder if we remembered to close the door for the night, or have to rush back home to close the door before the raccoons, possums, and skunks start prowling.

As I’ve said before, I’m a gadget guy, and we tend to accumulate gadgets that don’t necessarily save time or effort.  However, every once in a while, I do find a gadget that does some good.  In this case, it was a gadget that met all those agendas… an automatic chicken coop door.

I’d heard of them before – pretty cool gadgets that open the door in the morning to let the birds out, then shut in the evening when they’re roosted to keep them safe for the night.  I put on my Google-Fu gameface and went to work.  Sure enough, I found all types of doors available… simple to complex, hinged doors, vertical sliders, horizontal sliders…

… and they started at about $200 shipped, and went up almost to $400.  Ouch.

Undeterred, I added “DIY” to the start of my search string.  And boy did I find some great designs.

One had an electronic schematic involving diodes, transistors, limiting switches, solar panels, and a flux capacitor.

I’m a pilot, not an engineer, and I couldn’t afford the Mr Fusion required to run the sun-following solar panel positioner.

The next one used an old-fashioned wind-up alarm clock.  No kidding.

Simple, promising, but it lacked bling, and I worried about Homeland Security knocking on my door.

Here’s one that uses a power door lock actuator to drop the door closed.

Getting warmer, and the “no raccoons” sign was a big plus..  But I wanted one that would open the door also.

Finally, I found one done by the same guy that used a car antenna motor, a lamp timer, and a couple transformers.  Simple and straightforward, and made a cool electric motor noise when it operated.  It wasn’t the kind of status I could get by installing the Cheyenne Mountain blast doors, or the Star Trek elevators with their “swish-swish,” but pretty cool nonetheless.

Now this one used diodes also, but I figured I could bypass that nifty-keen aspect and replace the light-sensitive timer with a manual lamp timer. Winner, winner, chicken dinner (for me, not the foxes).

So, I started shopping around for the components.  Holy diminishing returns, Batman!  We were up past $100 again.

Enter the wonderful folks at www.backyardchickens.com, who not only have simple, step-by-step instructions for how to make this, but also tell you how to get the materials for about $50 total.

http://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=8400-automatic-pop-hole-opener

I ended up saving even a few more $$ when I realized aftermarket Wii controllers are 12v, 3.7A (plenty to run the motor) and were on sale from Amazon for $4 each (and free shipping with the antenna motor)!

Once the parts came in, I essentially followed the instructions and put my door together.  One thing I changed was to use a clear Lexan panel for the door (again, because I found one for cheap).

Worked like a charm… a few mods to make it open and close smoothly and we were in business.

Except the chickens wouldn’t use the door.

Seems they tried to go out while the door was closed, through the crystal-clear Lexan, and bumped their beaks one too many times.  Evidently, they decided that just because a cool noise went off, and it looked like the door had moved, they weren’t going to get tricked by the invisible Lexan forcefield again.

Easy fix – I covered the Lexan with spraypaint (now that I think about it, I should’ve used a “No Raccoons” picture), opened the door, and pushed the chickens out by hand.  By the next day, they’d figured it out.

Everything was now working great.  The door opened in the morning.  Chickens filed out and started reducing our tick population.  In the evening, they filed back in to the roost.  The door closed.  Everyone was safe.  We got to stay out late keeping Tractor Supply and Home Depot in business.  Life was good.

Then we got goats.  Within 24 hours, both of them (these are pretty dang big goats, mind you) had squeezed through the 8.5” x 11” opening to get to the chicken feed, shattering the Lexan door in the process.

However, that’s another story for another day.

On Gadgets

It’s a little known fact that the managers at the local Tractor Supply Co and Home Depot franchises have recently seen the same specialist to cure the same problem. It seems their salivary glands go hyperactive anytime they see me roll into the parking lot.

If you have a small farm, you know that there are all sorts of gadgets you can buy to “help” you.  Now, I’m a gadget guy – and my wallet and I are drawn to them like bugs to a zapper – but I’m also honest with myself.  I’m firmly convinced that very few of these machines, slicers, dicers, and automatic car washers actually result in a net gain in productivity, though some of them are just downright fun (as in the “Whiz-Bang Chicken Plucker,” which we don’t currently own… yet).

What’s a Whiz-Bang?  The story about it is on the inventor’s website, with some great photos and descriptions; however, while a photo says a thousand words, a video is even more verbose.  A bit of Google-Fu gives us an example:

Where were we?  Oh yeah, why gadgets rarely result in a net gain:

Say a person makes the US median income – about $45K a year, or $22.50 per hour.  He or she takes pride in his/her lawn and edges it every week from April to September using  an old-fashioned rotary-blade manual push edger for the task, a good workout that takes an hour to complete.  By the way, we’re talking about “a person,” not me.  I don’t edge my lawn.  It’s not visible from the road, I’m not exactly sure how one edges a gravel drive, and my wife normally mows the lawn anyhow… a long story involving lions, beavers, and USAF flight training.

Back to the story.  One day at Home Depot, said person notices that the Binford 2000 gas-powered Lux-o-Edger (with patented dual counter-rotating blades of turf death) is on sale for only $250.  The sales associate expresses horror when hearing about the old-fashioned edger our person currently uses and says “This baby will do the job in half the time.”

Our gadget guy (oops – I just lost the non-gender-specific edge, I guess) buys the edger, gas can, oil, extended warranty, storage cover, and auxiliary lighting system, and laser grass illuminator, checking out for $350.  Over the two-year life of edger (exactly the length of the extended warranty), he also spends another $100 in gas and parts, bringing the total cost to about $450.  In the end, he saves 20 hours of labor (24 minus  the 4 he spends changing the plugs and oil, and sharpening the dual counter-rotating blades of turf death), which at his hourly wage is worth about $450.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to close my Macbook and go spend some time adjusting our automatic chicken coop door.  Maybe I’ll use the tractor to turn the manure pile also, since it’s so much easier than using a shovel.  Afterwards, I’ll go scrounging for a food drum for a project I’ve been considering.  I’ve already got the motor….

Chickens, Lions, and Beavers… Oh My!

Our family has a weakness for free-range eggs.  You may be thinking, “what’s the big deal?  Eggs are eggs,” or “Can you really tell the difference?”  If so, you haven’t had a truly fresh, free-range egg.  I’ll have to save that discussion for a later blog post, but if you’re skeptical, just humor me through the rest of this story.

Anyhow, our weakness for free-range eggs, as well as a desire to be a little closer to our food is what led us to think about bringing chickens to the farm.  As the previous owner had run an emu operation, we had four out-buildings, one of which would be easily converted into a coop.  Space was not a problem – you can raise a small flock in most urban backyards if your city allows it, and we have just under 15 acres.

So, like most things to do with the farm, we had a family council to decide if we were ready to start a new venture.

Break, break… it’s about time to digress into a bit more backstory.

You may have had the opportunity in your life to take some sort of personality test… you know, the kind of test that tells you what your general personality type is, how you think, how you make decisions, strengths, weaknesses, etc.  There are myriad types – the one the Air Force uses a lot is the “DiSC,” with the categories being “Dominant,” “Influencing,” Steady,” and “Conscientious.”  Personally, I like Gary Smalley’s version, where the categories are defined pretty similarly, but he uses animals to label them – Lion, Otter, Golden Retriever, and Beaver, respectively.

I’m pretty pegged-out in the Lion category, with a good dose of Otter.  Both tend to be visionary and headstrong, not big fans of details, and better talkers than listeners.

In other words, after our family council I walked away figuring everybody was onboard with my vision for this and just as excited about it.  The vision everybody had signed on to was this: we’d start with a small flock, about a dozen egg-layers.  We’d raise them from chicks, have eggs a few months later, and in a couple years when they stopped laying, we’d send them to freezer camp and eventually the stew pot.

About a month later, we’d add a “straight run” of 24 dual purpose Barred Rocks to the flock, raising the pullets to add to our egg production and all but two of the cockerels for slaughter.

With everybody marching neatly behind, I called our neighborhood grain store and put in our order for six Rhode Island Reds and six Araucanas.

Shortly afterward, my wife said, “The kids told me you ordered the chicks.  I thought we were going to come to a family decision first.”

“Uhhh… we did.  Don’t you remember?”

“No.  We decided that we would all think about it, and have another meeting to talk about our thoughts.”

My wife is a pegged-out Beaver.  She remembers things that were said.  She follows rules.  Things usually work out better when Lions listen to Beavers, but it’s not nearly as “fun.”

“Oops,” I said.  “Well, it’ll be alright.”  That’s lion code for “don’t bother me with details.”

In the weeks prior to our chicks’ arrival, I started work on the coop, and planning for the timing for ordering our dual-purpose birds.  We had a couple more family meetings in which we set down the rules, the most important one being that we would not name the chickens.  I knew that if the chickens had names, they’d end up as pets, and when they got old and stopped laying eggs, I’d be stuck feeding them for the rest of their natural lives.

This rule caused a little bit of consternation, so using my best negotiating skills, I compromised.  Each of the three children could name one chicken, but only after the chicks were a bit older and their personalities emerged.  Those chicks would have a lifetime pardon from freezer camp.  Everybody agreed happily.  “Remember,” I admonished.  “No names until later.”

The day prior to the expected hatch date, we went over the rules one more time.  We had the warming lamp, the feeder, and the waterer ready to go.  That morning, as I headed off to work, I emphasized “the rules” one last time.  “No naming… got it?”

My wife got the call that morning that the chicks were in, and to come pick them up.  After scrambling to find a box that would fit in the car to pick up the chicks, she and the kids drove down the road, returning shortly afterwards with a dozen balls of fuzz-feathers and 50 lbs of chick starter.

By the time I got home, all twelve were named.

What Does Free Range Mean?

You can do an Internet search of “cage-free” and “free-range” eggs or chickens and see that there really aren’t a whole lot of legal requirements to claim those titles. 

"Free Range" Chickens at a Factory Farm

“Free range” at the Flying T means that as soon as our chicks and ducklings are safely able to live in the outdoors, we let them roam the farm. 

Rhode Island Red Free-Ranging at the Flying T

  Most of the chickens return to the coop at night to roost, and the ducks to the barn (some chickens may choose to hang out with the ducks in the barn, especially Henny Penny, aka “Chuck the Chicken Duck”), but otherwise they are out foraging for insects, bugs, spiders, worms, seeds, and plants during the majority of the day.  We don’t use pens or cages except in special circumstances (in order to quarantine new or young birds for a short time to ensure biosecurity, or to separate an injured bird to keep it from getting pecked, for instance). 

Chickens hanging out on a woodpile at the Flying T

 

Mocha foraging with her flock at the Flying T

 This does pose some risks (like predators) and costs.  We can only select breeds that are suitable for free-ranging.  Many “production” strains have many of their natural free-ranging, brooding, self-preservation, and other habits bred out of them so that they spend as much energy as possible either into growing meat on their bones or eggs to lay.  We believe the benefits, however, are worth it.

 Benefits:

1. Free-range eggs have up to 4-6 times the Vitamin D, 1⁄3 less cholesterol, 1⁄4 less saturated fat, 2⁄3 more vitamin A, 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids, 3 times more vitamin E, and 7 times more beta carotene than factory-raised eggs.  (article)
2. Free-range ducks and chickens are miracle-workers when it comes to controlling ticks, barnyard flies, grasshoppers, and other pests.  This reduces the need for pesticides, which is not only better for all the animals on the farm… it’s healthier and better for us as well!  (citation and another). 
3. Free-range birds are healthier than factory birds, and their meat has a firmer and more flavorful nature, and encourages us to return to more traditional harvesting, preparation, and cooking methods (read this article for good information and ideas).
4. While factory birds are selectively bred to discourage broodiness (a female bird’s instinct to nest, incubate, and raise her own young) because a broody hen doesn’t lay eggs, our breeding plan actually encourages broodiness, allowing us to sustain the flock.
5. A broody free-range hen will raise her own chicks/ducklings.  If you’ve ever raised either (we have… and actually, we are doing it again), you know it’s a lot of work and attention that could get spent elsewhere.  Our hope is that with our breeding plan, this is the last batch we have to hand-raise!
6. Though we offer free-choice supplemental feed (especially in winter), free-range birds require a lot less of this, reducing our costs.  And since they don’t spend as much time in their roosts, clean-up is a lot less time-consuming also (instead, they spend a lot of time fertilizing our pastures and lawn).
7. Free-range birds don’t tend to fight like confined birds, which is why even “cage free” and some “free range” factory birds have the tips of their beaks cut or burnt off. (citation)
8. Finally, it’s just peaceful and enjoyable to watch birds range over the farm, stopping from time to time to peck at food, or chasing a dragonfly across the pasture.

New arrivals

A pic of the latest new arrivals at the Flying T, 15 Barred Rocks.  I took this just as I ran out the door to work and will update later with better photos.

Our website is live…

… not finished, but live!  Check it out at http://www.flyingtnh.com (or click on the link to the right).